The River of No Return

sat back in her seat with a sigh. “I am sorry,” she said. “You do not have to engage me on the topic if you do not wish to.”
    Julia frowned. “I think he has changed beyond recognition. There. Does that satisfy you?”
    Clare laughed. “Prickly! But yes, it does. I think so, too. I am simply at a loss to quite explain what the difference is. That painting, of course, gets him entirely wrong, so it is no use searching there for a clue. See how haughty he looks. In fact, he was overwhelmed. Suddenly, without warning, he was Marquess of Blackdown. My mother became . . . no. My mother chose to become impossible. She demanded everything of him, and nothing was good enough.” Clare laid her embroidery aside and contemplated her brother’s painted face. “He disappeared. Long before he disappeared in Spain, he had disappeared into himself. Then he was swallowed by university, and London, and finally war.” She turned to Julia. “He is a rich and powerful man. Many women would choose him for his money or his position.”
    Julia said nothing, and the silence stretched. Clare might goad her to talk about Nick once, but Julia wasn’t going to rise to this bait.
    Finally, Clare looked down at her hands. “Well,” she said. “I only hope that he is eventually chosen by a woman who . . .” She looked back at the painting. “Who sees him. I suppose that is what I am trying to say. A woman who can really see him.”
    * * *
    “What I don’t understand is how you won that animal’s undying love in a single morning,” Bella said to the marquess as the three Falcott siblings, plus Julia and Solvig, set out half an hour later for a walk in the park. Blackdown had entered the drawing room with his enormous, ugly dog and he seemed to bring the brightness of the spring day inside with him. Something good has happened to him, Julia thought as he stood smiling down at her and inviting her—and his two sisters, of course—on a walk. Something that has given him purpose.
    Hyde Park at midday was sparkling green and fresh after yesterday’s rain, the sun was bright, and Julia was arm in arm with Blackdown. His sisters were joking with him about his ridiculous dog, which had an enormous bandage on one paw. For just this hour or two, all was right with the world. The count was off in Devon with Eamon—the fiend fly away with both of them. May they fall into a pit together.
    Solvig dragged Bella a few steps ahead, and Clare went with them.
    “Penny for your thoughts.” Blackdown’s voice was intimate, for her ears only.
    “My thoughts are bloodthirsty, I warn you.”
    “Tell me now.” He pinched her elbow tightly against his side. “I want to know your darkest desires.”
    “I was imagining Eamon and your count falling together into a fiery pit.”
    “Hm.” He seemed to treat it as a scholarly question. “The fiery pit of hell, or a fiery pit somewhere in Devon? Is this punishment unto death, or punishment after death? For which crimes are the two gentlemen being punished? Eamon I can well understand. I would like to pitchfork him into the pit for you, if you will give me the honor. But why Arkady? Has he been unkind to you?”
    Julia could have bitten her own tongue. Of course Blackdown didn’t know she knew about the count and his power. “I just don’t like him,” she said. “I cannot help but feel that he disapproves of me.”
    He took a few steps in silence. “It does not matter what he thinks of you, Julia. Eamon deserves the pit you have reserved for him. But Arkady is nobody. Forget about him.”
    “He is not nobody to you.”
    Blackdown stopped and turned to her. “Arkady is nobody to me, do you understand?”
    “I think so.” But Julia knew better.
    “You don’t look as if you understand. You look troubled.”
    “You told me . . . that day . . . that you aren’t free.”
    “That day. When I first kissed your sweet mouth. Is that what you are remembering?” He looked around. The others had drawn ahead, and no one else was near. “I want nothing more in this world than to kiss you again, right here.”
    “It would ruin me.” She laughed. “Ruin the two of us.”
    “It would be a beautiful ruination.”
    She shocked them both by dropping his arm and going up on tiptoe to kiss his mouth, quickly. “There. You are not the only one who dares.”
    “Julia!”
    She raised her eyebrows at him. “It pleases you to think you are the only one with courage.”
    “Oh, I do